Meeting Goals Mid Career – Featuring Dr. Filomena Garcia

Tenure is an impressive achievement. While it is a big step in your career, it doesn’t automatically undo years of overwork, binge-and-bust work patterns, or unsustainable writing and publishing habits. That’s why I invited Dr. Filomena Garcia to join me for a candid conversation about her experience as a mid-career academic and why she chose to join Navigate.

Filomena and I discuss her journey navigating institutional change while parenting three young children, and her realization that “being mid-career” wasn’t enough to give her the academic life she wanted. You’ll hear how she used Navigate to gain new skills, publish stalled work, and take back control of her time, without relying on nights and weekends.

If you’re mid-career and realizing that “more experience” isn’t the same as better systems, this episode will help you rethink what’s possible.

Why Mid-Career Doesn’t Automatically Fix Writing and Overwork

I start by challenging the assumption that tenure or seniority resolves writing struggles and workload stress.

We talk about:

• How academic systems quietly reward overcommitment at every career stage
• Why experience alone doesn’t lead to better boundaries or better publishing habits
• What actually changes (and what doesn’t) once you reach mid-career
• Why intentional skill development still matters long after promotion

Filomena’s story makes it clear that mid-career can be a powerful turning point, but only if you actively decide to work differently.

Filomena’s Experience Using Navigate Mid-Career

Filomena joined Navigate during a season of major transition: a new institution, young children, pandemic fallout, and a renewed push to publish. 

She talks about:

• Needing structure, accountability, and community after losing daily contact with former colleagues
• Rebuilding focus and productivity after feeling scattered and exhausted
• Learning that working fewer, more intentional hours led to better results
• Using tools like the Ideal Week to identify her most productive writing times
• Breaking large projects into concrete, doable tasks instead of vague goals
• Coordinating writing time with a partner who also works in academia
• Rather than promising “balance,” Navigate helped her manage seasons realistically, especially while parenting three young children.

What Changed: Publishing Progress, Time, and Confidence

Filomena also reflects on the tangible and intangible outcomes of participating in Navigate.

She shares:

• Completing and submitting multiple stalled articles
• Submitting both a major grant and a smaller grant within the same year
• Feeling more confident in making decisions about where her time and energy go
• Replacing guilt-driven overwork with focused, strategic writing sessions
• Experiencing genuine community with other women and non-binary academics

She also speaks openly about funding concerns and why she ultimately saw Navigate as a worthwhile investment in her long-term academic career.

“I want to normalize that getting tenure absolutely is a huge achievement and at the same time it doesn’t auto-solve for the pressures of overwork, the system of overwork that we have become so used to by being part of this academic culture that is pushing us all the time to overwork, like take on more projects you can handle and work many many hours with high levels of stress. Tenure is wonderful, but it doesn’t solve that. Experience is also wonderful, but experience alone without thoughtful development, reflection, and meaningful skill building won’t solve your problems.”

“Two articles are ready to be submitted and out in the world. And then I’ve also submitted two grants, one large grant and shorter grant. So those were another two things that I was able to accomplish. Honestly, I think that without the tools that I got from Navigate, especially trying to balance raising three little kids and my work and my teaching and my service, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this.”

We’re receiving applications for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and start your application process here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

1. Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Apply here!
2. Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing,and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!
3. If you would like to hear more from Cathy for free, please subscribe to the weekly newsletter, In the Pipeline, at scholarsvoice.org. It’s a newsletter that she personally writes that goes out once a week with writing and publication tips, strategies, inspiration, book reviews and more.

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